


Tie me up, so I can't run away

by sumiya



Series: Blood, Sweat and Tears [2]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Porn, Lost of sex, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 14:43:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8988556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumiya/pseuds/sumiya
Summary: After a couple of years working under Atobe's, Yanagi realizes things are becoming dangerously complicated. He only has himself to blame.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kunshi_sekijou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunshi_sekijou/gifts).



> Kunshi-san, my precious friend. 
> 
> This has been on the works for a very, _very_ long time. It isn't finished yet but the guilt is eating me alive so I decided to give it to you as Xmas present ( it's chaptered now so please look forward to the rest of it). I hope life is treating you well, and that you are growing to achieve your goals and dreams. I wish you all the best. (It gets angsty, but that's _our_ thing, isn't it?) I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
>  
> 
> This is set after the ending in Chuuken, aproximately around 2-3 years afterwards. Some day I'l write how they slay business together. Probably. 
> 
> Thank you N and C because they are amazing and lifesaviors and I love them a lot.

 

 

 _Kiss me, I don’t care if it hurts,_  
_Hurry and choke me_  
_So I can’t hurt any more_

 

 

 

The elevator’s bell rang obnoxiously loud in the dead of night but Yanagi couldn’t bring himself to care as he stepped out of the elevator and into the long hallway. No, the sound had only startled him _once,_ and since then it had become such an ordinary part of his life that it was a mundane enough thing to be ignored.

 

 

_The first time he had heard the doorbell, Atobe had been just behind him, analyzing his every move as if he was going to jump like a predator upon a harmless prey. Yanagi, knew how much pleasure Atobe got from getting under his skin (few but getting more often lately). The time that Yanagi had spent with Atobe had granted him intimate knowledge of how the business leader worked, but unfortunately, had worked to give Atobe the same intuition about Yanagi himself. Yanagi had been on edge, immersed in an unknown situation in an unknown place, and he had been so busy analyzing every possible outcome that the high-pitched sound of the elevator ball ringing had made him jump slightly. With the hot tension heavy between them, Yanagi flushed and looked away from Atobe’s unyielding stare and amused chuckle._

_“Are you nervous, Yanagi?”_

_Yes, of course he was. It was the first time he would get to know his new –and permanent-- living arrangement just under the penthouse Atobe himself lived in. They had agreed --- well Atobe had stated --- that Yanagi should move to the apartment under Atobe’s, in Atobe’s own private apartment complex and Yanagi hadn’t declined (fast enough)._

_Atobe had highlighted of all the benefits that he could bring to their partnership and business relationship; Yanagi would be available to discuss business even out of office hours, and with the frenetic rhythm they were living under while taking the Japan’s enterprise world under their rule, Yanagi hadn’t had a reason to say no or dismiss it as a bad idea back then. They were both engaged to their work and had similar mindsets about wasting time, so in theory, this would be the best choice to make._

_But, after riding the elevator with Atobe’s presence filling the small enclosed space and Atobe’s cologne closer than it would be in an office setting, Yanagi was seriously reconsidering this, classifying it as ‘not one of his best ideas’. The fact he wasn’t even taking a suitcase with him because Atobe said he would take care of Yanagi’s needs, was making him absolutely sure this was, in fact, a terrible idea._

_Still, Yanagi would never go back on his word and Atobe knew that. What was done was done and Yanagi would make the most out of it, as expected. It was challenging, even arousing, the game they both played so expertly. Being with Atobe was a game of guessing and ruminating over possibilities and predictions, Yanagi couldn’t afford to show any more vulnerability. Tightening his lips, Yanagi refused to be taunted, and forced himself to stay composed, face blank. Squaring his shoulders, he forced himself to ignore the promise of sin that Atobe’s breath left on his neck._

_“You are nervous. It’s alright. I don’t bite,” Atobe said lowly, against his skin, just teasing without making contact. Fleeting breaths that left goosebumps in their wake, acting as sharp contrast to the firm arm around Yanagi’s middle, pulling him closer, rooting him in place. “Unless you ask for it nicely, that is.”_

 

 

 

Yanagi sighed as he unfastened his tie carelessly, typing his key on the electronic pad to access his apartment. The sound of the electronic lock, shifting and unlocking, welcoming him home. Yanagi grimaced. _Home_.

That night, they had ended up having sex in the newly bought bed and the newly bought silk sheets. If Yanagi hadn’t been so blown away by the sight of Tokyo under them through the ridiculously large windows, magnificent and wide as they displayed the world in front of them; if Yanagi hadn’t been drunk on power and the potential opportunities before their eyes, he would have felt mortified that Atobe had been so thoughtful as to add sexually-related products when he had stocked Yanagi’s new apartment. But he hadn’t been his critical, thoughtful self that night, so he asked no questions and let Atobe take over him, in more ways than one.

That had been one year, eight months and six days ago.

And time was such a complex, relative thing.

His empty apartment greeted him with eerie silence and Yanagi let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding back. He took his shoes off and walked to the kitchen, placing his tie neatly on the kitchen isle and unbuttoning his jacket and dress shirt. He had left the party after all the major investors were politely drunk and the media was gone, surely Atobe would not ruin this with his particular antics and Yanagi could get some blissful rest after having barely slept for two months straight.

Being Atobe’s right-hand man was a very complicated lifestyle, and he felt he had already lived at least thrice his age, with the speed of their daily existence. Contracts, stocks, marketing conferences, press management, dinners in skyscrapers with potential investors, post-company-merger-sex. It was like being in the middle of a tennis match, but being the ball flying from court to court and, at the same time, the racket that hit it with utmost precision and expertise.

Atobe played at business as he played at tennis: aiming to win, never forfeiting and always dragging his victory out until he had completely defeated his opponent.

(All with a crowd cheering him from the stalls. In business and life, Atobe had the proclivity to make himself remarkable, through fame and reflectors.)

Yanagi’s kitchen clock blinked insistently at him. 3:45 am.

Saying Yanagi was _tired_ was just the tip of the iceberg—he was starting to believe exhausted would fall short as a descriptor--that was his actual state of being. He felt drained and pulled all-too-close to his mental and physical limits. There were nights, like today, when they had successfully taken over an adversary company and announced it to the media (with the mandatory flashy and over-the-top party at one of the most exclusive hotels in Japan) that Yanagi felt torn between feeling on top of the world and quitting and running away to Sanada’s family dojo and asking for a place there (begging for it, if he had to, though he doubted Genichirou would let him do it).

Was this what he really wanted?

Yanagi opened a bottle of champagne, the condensation wetting his fingertips. He didn’t bother to grab a flute.

Lonely, silent nights called for reflection and Yanagi’s thoughts were loud in the darkness of his empty apartment. How had he ended up here? Run to the bone and buried in cyphers and probabilities, in champagne and expensive clothes. Yanagi took his Armani suit jacket off and draped on the high chair in front of him. A little over five years ago, that would have been a jersey with _his_ name on it.

Yanagi swallowed hard as the faint ghost of Yukimura’s face appeared in his memory.

  
His smile, his smirk, his unyielding force and will in the court. Yanagi loved tennis, yes, but he had loved Yukimura the most. So he had followed him. When Yukimura had gone, Atobe was there and there hadn’t been much for Yanagi to think over. So he had followed Atobe, instead. He didn’t question the new owner of his leash, for the alternative had been getting lost in the pain of grief and loss of purpose. He was good at this, he could continue like this. Still, the crippling self-doubt washed over him in waves and left him out of breath.

What if it hadn’t been Yukimura who he had fallen in love with, but the idea of greatness engraved within him? Was the quiet glory of being the mastermind hidden behind success, of achieving something greater than himself—was that what had made him dominate the tennis courts and then the business field? Or was it something else?

In the eye of his mind Yukimura’s ghostly face slowly morphed, his jawline becoming sharper, his nose shifting form, his eyes changing color and style. Atobe’s face was almost solid in Yanagi’s mind, and he felt his chest tighten. Yanagi tried to get his breath back by drinking down some more.

Every question has an answer and Yanagi was good at finding those. He could solve this puzzle once and for all. It was alright.

Was this what he had thought he wanted in life? Was his love not for greatness but a style of life? Unexpected work hours and private flights in first class? Exchanging matching smirks when Atobe made yet another conquest in the business word, from his side? Ridiculously fast and dangerous trips in Atobe’s Jaguar, going from coast to coast just to prove that they could? Was it Atobe’s soft skin under his touch and the sinful moans that slipped past his lips when he was wrecked by pleasure? Was it the knowledge that Yanagi had been the one that caused it?

Atobe, Atobe, Atobe.

Yanagi was drowning and the kitchen tilted, his whole palm wet with the condensation of the bottle.

Yanagi drank some more, trying and failing to come up with an answer that neither felt like a lie nor tasted like Atobe’s skin on his mouth. It was alright, he could solve this. Slowly but gradually, he felt his eyelids becoming heavier, his thoughts turning into a foggy mess. He looked down at his hands where they clutched the edge of the kitchen island so hard his knuckles were white. There was only a little less than a quarter of a bottle of champagne left, and at some moment that he could not quite pinpoint, he had opened his bottle of sleeping pills. Yanagi didn’t remember taking them but he couldn’t deny the drowsiness taking over him either. He didn’t need to calculate possible incomes, when the risk of passing out on the kitchen marble was prominent as the night around him, so he needed to move to his bedroom before that.

Before crawling to his bed, he took another couple of pills for good measure.

Yanagi didn’t want to think.

He didn’t want to keep analyzing his actions, his reasons behind his life choices, nor admit that it had been seeing Atobe in all his playboy glory, with three European supermodels at his side and drinking away a small family’s income in champagne, that had made him leave the party. He didn’t want to think about their hands touching something that had sported Yanagi’s mark before. He didn’t want to think about Atobe’s hands touching voluptuous breasts and plump hips so distant from Yanagi’s sharp edges. He didn’t want to acknowledge the childish jealousy over sharing a toy that wasn’t even his to begin with, even if he knew he was the one that played with it the best. He didn’t want to regret getting hooked into a one-sided infatuation that had taken root deep within himself, choking him with unrequited love built on praise and success.

Yanagi didn’t want to regret that he didn’t regret drowning in it from time to time.

_Atobe, game set and match._

Come morning, he wouldn’t remember dumping his dress suit carelessly on the floor on his way to his king size bed, nor succumbing to sleep after jerking off with Atobe’s name on his lips.


End file.
